Fran Lebowitz re Hugh Jackman: "I hate that kind of show biz!"

I didn't realize she was such a hob goblin. She shouldn't be photographed if she wants stories to be read.

by Anonymous

reply 2

02/20/2013

Fran has gone on record saying she doesn't believe in same sex marriage

by Anonymous

reply 3

02/20/2013

She was very upset to be outed by Outweek in 1991.

by Anonymous

reply 4

02/20/2013

[quote] "I'll say the same thing I used to say about Liza Minnelli. I can see that he's very, very talented. But I hate that kind of show biz."

Agree completely. Not my kind of entertainment.

by Anonymous

reply 5

02/20/2013

If Fran did indeed have balls, they would probably look an awful lot like her face.

by Anonymous

reply 6

02/20/2013

I get what she is saying too. A totally learned kind of song and dance display. The voice is not great- but it projects, the dancing is not great but the movement superb, and everything about it is more or less a copy of what someone prior did better, it not all in the same package. The smile is huge, the largess, LARGE.

So why is it when it came out of Judy Garland it was sublime and it was art?

Liza and Hugh are more or less working their tails off very competently. Garland or Fred Astaire are emoting and moving in a manner no one else quite matches and with an integrety that is only theirs. Garland was not the best dancer and Astaire the best singer. But both were sublime.

I get it. Even someone like Madonna, because he music and her message are hers alone, comes off better than Minelli or Jackman in song and dance because they seem like carbons, albeit very competent and eager ones, of better artists.

by Anonymous

reply 7

02/20/2013

A dour lesbian who doesn't enjoy musical theater.

In other news, Tuesday is the day that comes after Monday.

by Anonymous

reply 8

02/20/2013

"Fran has gone on record saying she doesn't believe in same sex marriage"

To be fair she said for her. And she meant she didn't understand why gays wanted to mimic heterosexual norms. When she finished she agreed that denying gays the right to wed was wrong and a denial of basic human rights.

Earth Kitt says it best about this issue, if you listen to this full interview:

by Anonymous

reply 12

02/20/2013

I beg your pardon, R12.

The posts here at the DL are proof that I am hardly inoffensive.

by Anonymous

reply 13

02/20/2013

It's not that there’s an insufficient number of gay men, it's that they're different. The point I'm trying to make is that this particular generation tied on a mask. There was a break in the culture. But additionally, the idea—and not just the idea, the actual life of homosexuals—changed immeasurably because of the acceptance of homosexuality. And that was because of AIDS. No one ever says that. Or how AIDS caused gay marriage. I mean, it would never have existed. You could pretend to your family that you were straight, but you couldn't pretend you weren't dying. And also, people became scared, not just of AIDS, which was a sufficient reason to be terrified, but also because—and this is the other thing no one ever says—the way that AIDS spread, by which I mean the rapidity, which was caused by a level of promiscuity that never existed before or since. And I really believe that people made these kinds of bargains with themselves. You know, I'm not saying I have this on the record but from what I could see from the people I know who survived that era, it was like, “don't kill me and I won't do this anymore.” Also, most straight people never thought about gay people before AIDS, which is why I could publish this stuff, go on a national television show and never be asked about it, in the way you are asking me about it. They would focus on other things. And after AIDS, I think that [homosexual] people were afraid of a kind of official response to AIDS, like they would be arrested, or put in jail, all these kind of things, which are not unlikely things, by the way, and so they made up a lie. "We're just like you. We are just like you, we're exactly like you." But of course, they were not exactly like straight people. They were nothing like straight people.

by Anonymous

reply 14

02/20/2013

At some point in the 70s, I remember being in an S&M bar, I can't think of which one, but in a bar with a friend of mine, a guy. Women were not allowed in this bar, so I had like a special dispensation. I was there as an anthropologist, let me assure you, and I said to him, "If straight people knew what was going on in here, they would send the army in." I really believe that. It was a way of life for a relatively brief period of time that was stopped by AIDS, and it never came to public knowledge, because it was kept hidden. And it was hidden because people were afraid, and then these people died. I mean, there cannot be many who did not die, and those who were left just made this thing up. "No, we're just like you, we just want to get married and have children." And now gays are just like straight people. They're just like them, or largely like them. The difference between gay people and straight people now has more to do with gender than with sexuality. Men are men whether they are gay or straight. And so, basically, I mean, to me, to see all these gay people with children, I can't get over it. I think, "It’s unbelievable that you will do this when you don't have to."

by Anonymous

reply 15

02/20/2013

R7 BINGO.

Please give us more of your opinions.

by Anonymous

reply 16

02/20/2013

And yes, it was very shocking to live through [AIDS]. It's always shocking to young people when their contemporaries die. Even in a war, it's shocking. I mean, as a soldier. It was shocking, especially because we were the only generation that thought sex was really good, like vitamins. We thought that about drugs too, okay? Sex was really good and the more sex the better. It was helpful. Like now, the way people think of bike riding, which I think is a childish activity. I know people now think the bike is a sign of virtue and I think it's a toy, but we said sex was good for you and it turned out to it could be bad for you. Really bad. And yeah, people became terrified, of course. People were "terror-stricken" is the term I would use. And because when you look at it in retrospect, like all things you look at in retrospect, it seems very linear. The great thing about history is that it's in the past and people have time to compile a narrative, but that's not how it seems when you are living through it.

by Anonymous

reply 17

02/20/2013

It’s because there are hardly any survivors. This leap was made that was… I wouldn't say "orchestrated" because there's no way anyone could have imagined what would happen, but the behavior… Now look, when I say the "behavior," I don't mean the virus, okay? Because one thing that people really quickly forgot about AIDS is that it’s a virus. I did not forget this. I argued with the people from ACT UP and with all those people who made a kind of political activity out of something because they were afraid that the other side would make it into a political activity. I was always fighting with them and saying, "You are making a metaphor of a virus, which is what you were afraid that straight people were going to do." But it was a virus. It still is a virus, like the flu or like a million viruses. So, I think that people stopped talking about it because there weren't that many survivors, and because this big lie took its place, and this big lie was invented by people, not as a defense mechanism, but as a defense. Ronald Reagan was the president. Now he's being looked upon as Santa Claus, but he was horrible, really horrible. And not just Ronald Reagan, but the world was made up of more Ronald Reagans than of anyone else, and so gay people were afraid and they made up this big lie. You know, "No, I haven't had sex with 40,000 people in dark trucks, I'm just like you." And so they didn't invent the virus, but the spread of this virus, the rapidity at which it spread, of course it was caused by this promiscuity. Of course it was. It's the same thing with a regular cold virus. If you're alone in your house with a cold, no one's going to catch it. If you go into a subway car and you sneeze on everyone, the subway car's going to catch it. So there’s this blank space in history where the story breaks. In every kind of documentary or anything written about at the beginning of AIDS, they always show you that piece in The New York Times, someone in their house, Fire Island Pines, reading this headline. But that's not how it was. And they show it because they don't have time to explain, and five minutes after that everyone's dying, and then two minutes later, everyone's getting married. Okay? That is just not true.

by Anonymous

reply 18

02/20/2013

Like her doing those Disney enactments for Vanity Fair is considered high art. Bitch, step down from your high horse so I can kick you in your shriveled cunt.

r20, gosh-darnit. You're right. I apologize. If Datalounge only had a post deleting feature.

by Anonymous

reply 23

02/20/2013

R19 Get your Irrelevant Lebowitz divas straight.

by Anonymous

reply 24

02/20/2013

He was upset by being outed by Outweek in 1981? Frannie wore suits all over the place and looked like Mel Brooks with a wig! It was glaringly obvious that it was an annoyingly mannish little dyke.

Frannie comments on gay male culture BUT were lesbians like that? The whole dyke culture was different animal than gay male culture.Then again he/it/she must fancy herself as a gay man inside a lesbian's body!

by Anonymous

reply 25

02/20/2013

r23 no need to apologise - you've never heard of Fran Lebowitz, we get it. You are only familiar with figures in the entertainment industry, hence the hostility and confusion of identities.

by Anonymous

reply 26

02/20/2013

Fran, darling:

If you can't write a new book, at least change your fucking look!

It's just so pathetically silly to appear in public in a 30 year-old costume.

You're like a demented clown.

TIA

by Anonymous

reply 27

02/20/2013

I totally agree with Fran.

by Anonymous

reply 28

02/20/2013

Fran's on point, as usual. Begging to be liked isn't entertaining. Not caring if you're liked (but being decorous about it) is pure star power.

by Anonymous

reply 29

02/20/2013

I completely enjoyed all the Frans yet especially appreciate "final Fran" for her analysis of Ronald Reagan.

Frans, please keep multiplying and posting.

PS:

The Frans could whip "SMASH" into shape in 2 seconds flat.

by Anonymous

reply 30

02/20/2013

I love Elizabeth Warren. Scott Brown looks to me like an aging waiter . . . . Like a failed soap-opera actor. There are tons of people like this in LA and New York — these guys who were very good looking when they were young, they thought they would become actors, and they're still coming to your table telling you the specials.

by Anonymous

reply 31

02/20/2013

[quote]You are only familiar with figures in the entertainment industry,

uh, Fran and Annie ARE figures in the entertainment industry. We're not talking about cerebral Portuguese poets or thought-provoking contemporary conceptual artists, but people who have made their careers by writing breezy curmudgeonly humor essays about pop culture and photographing celebrities for glossy magazines.

It doesn't matter two shits if someone does or doesn't know who they are, so you can take the queeny snit about that poster's simple mistake and stuff it.

by Anonymous

reply 32

02/20/2013

Fran Returns isn't grabbing me the way the previous Frans did.

I fear "Fran Returns" is a Faux Fran.

I don't like a Fran that "punches down"

"Like a failed soap-opera actor. There are tons of people like this in LA and New York — these guys who were very good looking when they were young, they thought they would become actors, and they're still coming to your table telling you the specials."

Not cool. I need someone to tell me the specials and I prefer it be someone who had ambition at some point in their lives.

I like a Fran that punches up or sideways.

Future Frans, please head this advice. I am your most worthy reader.

by Anonymous

reply 33

02/20/2013

Business is not the same thing as economics. The country doesn't seem to realize this. It's the opposite. People say, "Business is very complicated. Only a genius can be in business." Business is the simplest thing on the planet. It has one purpose: to make a profit. It's really simple. Economics is really complicated. Politics is complicated. There's a million values in politics and economics. There's only one in business. And so I think it's terrible to bring businessmen into these types of decisions. They don't care about most people. Forty-seven percent! Romney doesn't care about — I hate to use this phrase — he doesn't care about 99 percent of the people! He doesn't care about them, he doesn't even know who they are! Of course he doesn't care about them! That videotape, whatever it's called now, the thing that Mother Jones got? That was a shock to people? People are moronic. That wasn't a surprise to me.

by Anonymous

reply 34

02/20/2013

It would be odd if she had something different to say than what she said about Minnelli.

by Anonymous

reply 35

02/20/2013

I once saw Fran at Polly Bergen's act at Feinstein's. (As I recall, she was there with John Waters.)

Have to wonder why she was there. Odd she would have enjoyed Polly's kind of show biz when she hates Liza's and Hugh's.

Maybe she likes it only in smaller venues.

by Anonymous

reply 36

02/20/2013

I've never understood her appeal. All those long comments from her are party on target but also wildly off base--all gay men in the 70s actually weren't S&M enthusiasts, and statistically most gay men in the USA actually weren't killed off by AIDS (though a large number were).

As always, she thinks her tiny little experiences in Manhattan are representative of the entire nation.

by Anonymous

reply 37

02/20/2013

[quote]As always, she thinks her tiny little experiences in Manhattan are representative of the entire nation.

Isn't that the NY way, though?

by Anonymous

reply 38

02/20/2013

I can't help but imagine how bad her jackets smell, after all those years of chain-smoking and a personal style that seems completely in keeping with those old men who clean their clothes by sticking them in a drawer with mothballs.

by Anonymous

reply 39

02/20/2013

She told a funny story in Public Speaking. She said that she once gave a lecture at a college in New Orleans, and it was really humid (and raining!), so her curly hair went wild. She had noticed some frat boys in the audience and thought to herself, "Hmmm, not my usual audience." So, during the Q & A, one of the frat boys asked her, "Who does your hair?" She responded, "Why? You wanna meet him?"

Fran said that about a month later, she received a letter from the frat boy's mother. She wrote that her son was ostracized by his frat because they thought he was gay and he had to drop out of school, and it was all Fran's fault.

by Anonymous

reply 40

02/20/2013

"Like her doing those Disney enactments for Vanity Fair is considered high art. Bitch, step down from your high horse so I can kick you in your shriveled cunt."

Hahahaha! A dumber fag I've never seen.

by Anonymous

reply 41

02/20/2013

One strike against her is her enduring friendship with that heinous social climbing douche bag Graydon Carter.

So there's her connection to that shitty rag.

by Anonymous

reply 42

02/20/2013

Is she really a woman?

by Anonymous

reply 43

02/20/2013

[quote]That's very old school. Fran is old. Her opinion is predictable.

Whenever someone disagrees with an opinion on this site they can't differences in opinion. If they are older. it's their age or else they're a freeper.

On the Katherine Hepburn thread some poster thought another poster must be as old as his mother only because they disagreed that all people in mdoern times get married. He thought they did! Truth? His mommy gave birth to a boy who was essentially conventional, paranoid and not around the ar community that much.

by Anonymous

reply 44

02/20/2013

R8 wins! W&W!

by Anonymous

reply 45

02/20/2013

Okay?

by Anonymous

reply 46

02/20/2013

So the Russian Jews have Asiatic eyes because they are of Siberian/Mongol heritage, am I right?

by Anonymous

reply 47

02/20/2013

The cuntiest cunt who ever cunted.

Ann Coulter ran from her in abject fear, screaming.

Hannibal Lecter refused to take a bite.

by Anonymous

reply 48

02/20/2013

What is the status of her upcoming program with Frank Rich on HBO? Very much looking forward to some intelligent talk on American television.

by Anonymous

reply 49

02/20/2013

Ah, R48--nice to see a fellow Susskinder! How I wish those shows were available on DVD, streaming archive, or other format.

If the Rich-Lebowitz show comes about,, I may have to break down and subscribe.

by Anonymous

reply 50

02/20/2013

I agree with her but she insults Minnelli to put Jackman in the same category. Jackman is a second rate musical talent but because he throws himself into it with abandon and he's considered good looking, everyone acts as if he's Astaire or Kelly. I've liked him as an actor, thought he was great in THE PRESTIGE, but if he's singing and dancing, I'm staying away.

by Anonymous

reply 51

02/20/2013

In the interest of the public interest, and in an attempt to render back to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, I have unilaterally and unrepentantly drawn up the following little list:

Reversion of Rights

(1) All religious leaders must be elected to their positions by representatives of the secular community formerly known as "the people." Their campaigns must be financed by money contributed by their congregants, but administered by the state. Money left over in campaign funds will be donated to public institutions.

(2) For every mandatory moment of silence before classes at a public school, during which students are free to pray or not, there will be a mandatory moment of noise before services at a religious institution, during which congregants are free to listen or not.

(3) All religious texts will be vetted and, if necessary, revised, by ad hoc committees composed of public librarians, English teachers, literary critics, and writers, in order to ensure that no representative of the secular community is in any way offended.

(4) All alternate-side-of-the-street parking spaces that are freed up by the suspension of alternate-side-of-the-street parking regulations due to the observance of religious holidays will be collected by the adherents of whichever religion is observing said holiday and donated to those public-school teachers who can afford to keep a car in the city. If none can be found, the religious institution in question will provide such vehicles deemed necessary.

(5) In accordance with the recent enactment of the statute known as the Full Faith and Credit Initiative, the national debt will be paid in full by a randomly selected assortment of faith-based institutions.

(6) All religious institutions that engage in the ritual burning of incense either must cease doing so altogether or must do it outside—but not outside here, and no, no, not there either—on the off chance that a representative of the secular community or, more importantly, much, much more importantly, the child of a representative of the secular community who is allergic to incense, afraid of incense, annoyed by incense, or merely plagued by the suspicion that someone might enjoy the incense, should happen to be present.

(8) All legal functions performed by participants in the criminal-justice system, including, but not limited to, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, defendants, and jurors, will be fully funded by religious institutions in order that said participants may provide to the aforementioned institutions secular aid and counsel. These provisions will henceforth be known as reasonable-doubt-based initiatives.

(9) Artists shall, at the slightest provocation, attempt to noisily and noisomely remove from any religious institution that catches their eye any work of art that they find aesthetically offensive. Particular attention will be paid to the handling of negative space.

(10) All manner of protest must be launched by representatives of the secular community who are angered and humiliated by the obsessive level of fear and hysteria manifest in religious requirements that women cover various parts of their bodies. For not only are these injunctions deeply offensive in themselves, but also a terrible example for the children of the representatives of the secular community, whom they are doing their best to raise in an environment free of such sex-soaked notions.

(11) All real estate owned by religious institutions will be taxed as if it were, in fact, real estate. All revenues thus collected will be used to build public housing for the meek. When the meek inherit the earth, they shall pay no estate taxes. Sorry, I meant death taxes.

(12) In a splendid act of gratitude, all salaries and living expenses of all religious leaders who oppose legal abortion will henceforth be paid by the unborn; the partially born will just chip in.

by Anonymous

reply 52

02/20/2013

In the Martin Scorsese documentary about you, Public Speaking, you say you don’t get why gays are clamoring to get into the oppressive institutions of marriage and the military. Do you think gay culture has been subsumed by the mainstream?

Oh, of course—not subsumed. I mean, here’s the thing: That is the goal of liberation movements. The goal of liberation movements is to erase the differences, especially when the differences are huge disadvantages. And that’s absolutely what happened. And by the way, I, unlike, it seems, everyone else on the planet, do not equate all these things. The gay-rights movement was not like the civil-rights movement. If I was black, I’d be furious about that.

Why?

Because slavery never happened to homosexuals. I would think that’s enough of a distinction. But if that isn’t enough for you, there were no cops with fire hoses, and the fact that you could hide your homosexuality was an advantage. It’s like I always say: A Jew who pretends not to be Jewish to get into a country club? I have nothing but contempt. A Jew who pretends not to be Jewish to escape Hitler? Good for you! It depends what the reason is. But being black is something you can’t hide!

by Anonymous

reply 53

02/20/2013

"I feel very stimulated by cigarettes," says Ms. Lebowitz, who smokes two packs a day, most of them while she's talking or writing. "Nicotine has that effect on me. That's what it's supposed to do. It's a drug. Drugs work. That's why people take them. Sometimes when I don't feel well, someone will tell me to try drinking some daffodil tea. I tell them, 'No, I think I'll take tetracycline, thank you.' It works faster. Like cigarettes. They get to the point. The words are in the cigarettes."

Smoking is one topic on a stunningly long list of things that concern the professionally deadpan author, who is 43 and views writing as "a rarefied form of a tantrum." A self-described reactionary who was a friend of Malcolm Forbes and who goes to fancy parties with musicians, artists and limousine-liberals including Barry Diller, Diane von Furstenberg and Calvin Klein, her appeal comes from her ability to lampoon any trend of the day in the most politically incorrect manner possible.

"I don't understand this scandal about nicotine in cigarettes," she says. "What did we think they were full of? Vitamin C and calcium? This secondhand smoke issue is a fraud. What about secondhand car exhaust? Nobody seems to care about that." She leans back, takes a long pull from her cigarette and exhales as if she were giving a little gift to the world. Then she orders lunch.

But she isn't finished with pollution and personal space. "I was living in Princeton for the past year, and the lawn mowers are incredibly noisy there," she says. "They spew all kinds of stuff into the air. And leaf blowers. They blow the leaves to one place, and a few seconds later, that big leaf blower in the sky blows them back. When I was a child, we had leaf raking, which was quiet."

"I had gone to Princeton to work because it was too noisy here," she continues. "But those lawn mowers and leaf blowers were driving me out of my mind. I called the police and asked if there was a way to get everybody to mow their lawns on the same day. They have elaborate recycling in Princeton. You practically have to file your garbage by color. So I thought, 'Why can't we have lawn mowing days?' I came back to the city. It'll be quiet here because everyone goes away in the summer. Also, there's so little lawn mowing. That's an added attraction."

by Anonymous

reply 54

02/20/2013

I came from a town where there were two races, black and white. There were a few Chinese people, and this may sound shocking, but I had no idea they were a different race. I thought they were a different nationality, like Italian or French. Now you have people coming here from Cambodia, from Egypt, from Colombia, from places you never thought would be sending us their huddled masses. I mean, surely 20 years ago no one could have imagined a more unlikely pair of words than "Korean deli." And all these people think of themselves as being members of different races. Ethnic groups have taken on the same weight as racial groups, with the same demands, the same notion of themselves.

To me, this plays into the hands of the people in power -- the white people. If you want to ensure generation after generation of Mexican gardeners in California, you insist on bilingual education in the grammar schools. You can pretend that you would just as soon have your cardiologist speak to you in Spanish, but if you don't speak Spanish, you would just as soon not.

If you're black, don't you say to yourself, "We've been here for a zillion years, and here are all these people coming along, acquiring power by saying they're powerless acquiring power by equating their lot with ours"? Blacks are the standard of oppression. People are always taking appalling historical events that one would hope are unparalleled and making absurd and immoral equations: the police raid the Stonewall Inn and instantly and forever it's "Bull" Connor turning the fire hoses on the marchers in Birmingham; antiabortion maniacs throw fetuses at abortion-performing doctors and an absolutely unembarrassed analogy is made to a lynch mob. These things are categorically unrelated, as are most things. Things are very rarely exactly like other things. If they were, people would be less baffled in general, and perhaps less given to such statements as "This is like the Holocaust." Nothing is like the Holocaust. Not that there haven't been other tragedies, other genocides. But simply that they were peculiarly, specifically, intrinsically like themselves. Genocides are like snowflakes, each one unique, no two alike. You can't go around making these horrendously invalid comparisons. It is disgraceful and annoying. If you were in Auschwitz, you undoubtedly feel that on top of having been in Auschwitz you shouldn't also have to have your experience used to justify, say, gay marriage.

What is actually served by multiculturalism and all things attendant to it is the power of white people, and this, despite any and all such academic quibbling, is primarily accomplished by the continuing oppression of blacks. Because even though the conversation now includes all these other elements, the truth is that the farther you are from being black, the more likely you are to assimilate, to be more like white. The more you are like white, the less trouble you have because the more you are like white, the less trouble you are.

by Anonymous

reply 55

02/20/2013

R7 - I don't know anything about Astaire, but I think that Garland had a rare quality of believing in whatever she was singing.

I'm not an entertainment expert by any means, but I often wonder how many singers really feel their songs or if it's just a vocal exercise for them. My guess is not very many.

by Anonymous

reply 56

02/20/2013

Lot of silly antiquated notions, but some real gems too (love the lawn mowing riff, the religion turnabout). Gay people didn't invent either S&M or promiscuity, so her riffs based on that are a little silly, as well as her pretence that sex clubs in Manhattan were either central to the gay experience or the spread of AIDS. Neither was ever true.

Not everybody can hide sexual orientation, and sodomy was punished by death in parts of colonial America. Later, it was punished by mental hospital. She has no business minimizing all that.

Multiculturalism is not a fraud and does not help only the white people (as we see from immigrant groups who sue for their rights but who routinely discriminate against native borns in their own fields).

by Anonymous

reply 57

02/20/2013

Of course he doesn't appreciate sunny positivism, she's a lesbian. All of the lesbians I have met in my life have been tough old broads - even if they weren't old in years.

by Anonymous

reply 58

02/20/2013

Lebowitz hates "that kind of show business?" What? Someone who sings and dances? Sorry sweetheart, but that is a great deal of what show business is especially the kind that's on Broadway.

Lebowitz also noted that she previouly said the same thing about Liza Minnelli. What the Christ for? Liza in her heyday demonstrated more talent on stage than a dozen Fran Lebowitz's combined.

Perhaps Fran doesn't like Hugh Jackman's personality. Okay, fine. But there's no denying his talent. And even more so, Liza does not come off as sweet and syrupy. She comes off as a show biz professional, who if you listen to any of Liza's interviews, never has an unkind word to say about anyone. She's all about the work and putting her best foot forward.

So what's Lebowitz's problem with talent?

by Anonymous

reply 59

02/20/2013

Ooh, get a load of Miss Show Queen at r59 having her little meltdown over Liebowitz's comments.

by Anonymous

reply 60

02/20/2013

R47 They don't have Asian genes.Ashkenazi Jews are actually close to Palestinians(another Semitic people)genetically.

Frannie has a really serious disease....fugly dyke syndrome!

by Anonymous

reply 61

02/20/2013

R60=smoker

by Anonymous

reply 62

02/20/2013

Eartha Kitt means something in her commentary. Fran Lebowitz is just a predecessor of Camille Paglia: bullshit talking that sounds brilliant one on one but doesn't stand up to analysis or reflection.

by Anonymous

reply 63

02/20/2013

[quote]Liza in her heyday demonstrated more talent on stage than a dozen Fran Lebowitz's combined.

I know some singing teachers that would argue that point.

Both HJ & LM have their appeal but they just don't have that much originality, more often than not polished surface rather than artistry. That's all she meant. Come on Hugh's fans come in 2 flavors, idiotic or crazy.

by Anonymous

reply 64

02/20/2013

"Even someone like Madonna, because he music and her message are hers alone, comes off better than Minelli or Jackman in song and dance because they seem like carbons, albeit very competent and eager ones, of better artists."

Madonna picked up where Debbie Harry left off in terms of the smart ass, street smart persona, though she did go further with it. She also went after the Grace Jones-esque edginess, but unlike Jones who truly didn't give a shit, Madonna always knew when to curb it for fear of truly impacting sales.

She was not an island onto herself. No entertainer truly is.

Minnelli as we know her is not a carbon copy of Garland. She was largely a creation of Fosse, Kander and Ebb. She will even tell you that.

by Anonymous

reply 65

02/20/2013

If every there was someone the flyovers wouldn't get, it is Miss Fran.

by Anonymous

reply 66

02/20/2013

[quote] and statistically most gay men in the USA actually weren't killed off by AIDS

You can't tell that to a gay person in NYC or San Francisco. They won't believe you.

by Anonymous

reply 67

02/20/2013

R57, you are entering "facts" not in evidence. She never minimized anything; she merely said gays as a class were never enslaved or had firehoses and dogs turned on them by so-called peace officers.

And Stonewall was not Selma, or Philadelphia MS, or Bastrop, LA. Stonewall was its own evil moment that should have, and did, ignite a movement. It is wonderous, sad, and amazing in its own right.

I don't know why this is so difficult to comprehend, or why so many choose to label those who make the distinction as antigay, homophobic, whatever. Saying or believing what Fran did does NOT equate to "your sin is not my skin." THOSE assholes are a different kettle of rotten, maggoty fish.

by Anonymous

reply 68

02/20/2013

[quote]Both HJ & LM have their appeal but they just don't have that much originality

Nah, I guess Fran Lebowitz just doesn't like that sort of thing. I guess Liza lacks originality; she's always been just one of those cookie-cutter, run-of-the-mill performers with just a minimum amount of talent. Nope, Liza's talent--nothing to write home about. Nothing original about Liza.

Think again.

by Anonymous

reply 69

02/20/2013

LOL--I love that r59 came back at r69 to give that Philistine hussy Fran L. a further piece of her mind!

YOU GO GIRL!!!

by Anonymous

reply 70

02/20/2013

Fuck Fran. Love Liza.

Or,

Fuck Fran.

Love, Liza.

by Anonymous

reply 71

02/20/2013

One thing Fran is certainly NOT is a philistine.

by Anonymous

reply 72

02/20/2013

[quote]Liza's three Tonys, Oscar, Emmmy, Grammy, BAFTA, Drama Desk, Golden Globe, worldwide concert tours, etc., etc.[/quote]You ought to think before you post. Awards are not necessarily for originality, or high quality. They may be rewarding "polish" & crowd pleasing rather than substance, and in fact they can be highly political.

by Anonymous

reply 73

02/20/2013

R73. Pia Zadora's fame and infamy is political. Liza's is talent.

by Anonymous

reply 74

02/20/2013

R70...thank you for your support.

by Anonymous

reply 75

02/20/2013

I agree 100% about Jackman. He's very earnest and eager. But he basically gets by on his looks and personality.

by Anonymous

reply 76

02/20/2013

I kind of like her schtick, although nothing she says is really that controversial. I think because we live in a time of corporate get-along speak, saying "i like cigarettes" seems so radical. BUT, this was totally on-point and should be more well known:

[quote]And so I think it's terrible to bring businessmen into these types of decisions. They don't care about most people. Forty-seven percent! Romney doesn't care about — I hate to use this phrase — he doesn't care about 99 percent of the people! He doesn't care about them, he doesn't even know who they are! Of course he doesn't care about them! That videotape, whatever it's called now, the thing that Mother Jones got? That was a shock to people? People are moronic. That wasn't a surprise to me.

by Anonymous

reply 77

02/20/2013

You guys DO know Fran Lebowitz is a humorist?

by Anonymous

reply 78

02/20/2013

Because it's a lie R68, created by right wing propaganda. Denial of rights is denial of rights period.

by Anonymous

reply 79

02/20/2013

So is Camille Paglia, if the truth were told. And Peggy Noonan. And Ann Coulter.

by Anonymous

reply 80

02/20/2013

Bullshit, R79. You're moving the goalposts.

by Anonymous

reply 81

02/20/2013

[quote] she merely said gays as a class were never enslaved or had firehoses and dogs turned on them by so-called peace officers.

Well, then she's dumb for making that statement without accounting for people who were gay AND black who did go through that.

And there's been no accurate recounting of gay history the way there has been for black history. Few people know or talk about the burnings, the murders, the violent attacks, the hangings, the jail sentences, the lobotomies, the mob violence, and it's seldom conceptualized in this way: as a history of centuries of gay oppression and violence, which dates back thousands of years and has claimed millions of victims. And there were black slave owners and black millionaires at the time of the civil rights movement, so not ALL black people were in the same boat.

She's full of shit.

by Anonymous

reply 82

02/20/2013

[quote]So is Camille Paglia, if the truth were told.

The tragedy of Camille Paglia's life is she wants it both ways: to be both a humorist AND taken seriously. She's never been taken seriously by the people whose respect she wants, which makes her constantly furious (and bitchy).

by Anonymous

reply 83

02/20/2013

I'm tired from work today, and for the first 50+ replies accidentally thought we were talking about Fran Drescher! Oy.

by Anonymous

reply 84

02/20/2013

[quote]Isn't that the NY way, though?

That explains it but does not excuse it.

by Anonymous

reply 85

02/20/2013

Movie theaters are not pitch black anymore. They keep lights on. That drives me out of my mind. You know, magic was associated with movies. One of the reasons is, it was a magical experience to sit and watch this giant image float. That image could kind of take you in a way that these tiny images don’t take me, at any rate. I’m sure if you never saw one of those, then you don’t miss it. But the state of being able to see lots of kinds of movies is economic, don’t you think? I don’t think that’s cultural.

There’s too much democracy in the culture, not enough in the society. Let me assure you, they do not turn the lights down at Carnegie Hall. I mean, Carnegie Hall! The lights are on at Carnegie Hall. The lights are on at the Philharmonic. At the New York City Ballet. To me, this is enraging beyond belief. I don’t want to be aware of my surroundings. I want to be taken by the thing; that’s why I go. I’m not a movie-maker. I’m not Beethoven. I go because I appreciate these things. I don’t want my appreciation interfered with by you, the person sitting in front of me. If I was interested in you, the person sitting in front of me, I would pay to go see you.

This is a false equality. It’s not true. I mean, it’s a lie. It’s a lie that your opinion is as important as the thing you’re watching. If it is, make the thing. It’s just a lie. It must come from the way they raise children now. I’m just guessing at this, because luckily, I have none. Well, it wasn’t luck, it wasn’t an accident. But I mean, people ask people things they couldn’t possibly know. They’re always inquiring. People ask their children things. They ask their 7-year-old child, “Where would you like to go to school?” A 7-year-old child is no more capable of making the correct judgment for that than the person sitting next to you in the movie theater in the dark. There is this big lie in the culture that has been disastrous. It’s disastrous. Especially when it goes into politics. I give you Sarah Palin.

by Anonymous

reply 86

02/21/2013

1993:

All of a sudden there were lots of writers younger than me. Of course, this might happen to anyone. When you reach a certain age, suddenly there are lots of people younger than you, which is really startling. If you’re used to being young, you don’t notice when you’re not young anymore, and then all of a sudden you’re compelled to notice. When I published my first book I was twenty-seven. I met other writers, but thought they were all old. Then one day there were a lot of writers, and they were ten years younger than me. These kids were different. When I was a kid, the people of my generation didn’t want to be writers, they wanted to be rock stars. Rock and roll was not just entertainment, it was the center of people’s lives. When I was young, it was exciting and interesting. These days very young kids are maybe interested in rock music as the center of their lives, or musicians are, but the average above-average person isn’t. For someone who loves books and reading as much as I do, this is a funny thing to complain about but, in a way, I think the reason many of them became writers was out of a kind of conservativism, a fear, a kind of cynical dullness. I don’t mean that there aren’t interesting people in it, but that generation of people who were in their twenties in the eighties, who are now about thirty . . . it’s a quiet generation. There’s a kind of carefulness that you don’t associate with youth. It’s worse than the fifties; it’s the fifties without the naïveté. It’s very disheartening to encounter a fearful twenty-one year old. They haven’t earned the right to be that afraid. It’s not like we’re living in war-torn Bosnia or something. They have a kind of middle-aged quality without the wisdom or experience. There’s nothing youthful about most of those writers. There’s an approach to it that strikes me as having to do with a job. To me, they’re investment bankers with word processors. You wonder how their writing will change as they grow older.

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